Old-Salt

the most 'interesting' bit was the telephone calls taken after the broadcast, the first caller was comparing a pvt soliders pay with working in a shop, saying their pay was really good plus they dont go anywhere until they have had 4 years training ??? hmmm

would seem most the other callers didn't get the point of the phone in which asked if the armed forces have enough respect from the public. It just ended up asking the political questions about iraq....

would be interested if anyone else listened.... i'm still counting to ten

LE

the most 'interesting' bit was the telephone calls taken after the broadcast, the first caller was comparing a pvt soliders pay with working in a shop, saying their pay was really good plus they dont go anywhere until they have had 4 years training ??? hmmm

would seem most the other callers didn't get the point of the phone in which asked if the armed forces have enough respect from the public. It just ended up asking the political questions about iraq....

would be interested if anyone else listened.... i'm still counting to ten

Just listened online - couldn't listen live. The things that struck me - people being well up for it, but the reality of casualties destroying morale and the suffering of the woman who had lost her kid. I must have a vivid imagination because the idea of being wounded seems very real to me without being anywhere near it.

Despite all the problems it would cause, and despite the reductions in operational efficiency, programs like this convince me that both the public and politicians should be put in serious harm's way whenever we go to war. Rotate MPs through the most dangerous areas and impose some kind of draft on the public - make it real for them. Otherwise things just go on and on the way they are - poor kit, inadequate pay, incompetent rehabilitation....The public have no idea what a high velocity round sounds like, they've never been awake for 48 hours, they have no frame of reference that would allow them to understand, and they don't care. Or rather they care in a maudlin sentimental way - like watching a slushy film - "those poor boys" - but they don't care in a visceral way, in their guts. Even the Frederick Forsyth patriotic stuff gets on my tits. I don't think it expresses the reality of people dying - it sounds like a cliche........"gave his life so that others.....". People don't give their lives, they have them taken from them. It's a sacrifice, but the words are totally inadequate. I think it was Tim O'Brien who said that it is the easiest thing in the world to die in a combat zone, and people should remember that all the old men who parade on veterans' day, every single one of them chose to live. I don't know if that is quite true, but I think there's something in it.

But from the program - the mother talking about how she wanted to smash her head into the ground, that she didn't want to breathe because her son wasn't breathing, didn't want to east because he wasn't eating. That sounds real. If Blair's kids had been blown to buggery I might listen to him talking about "sacrifice", but with a sociopath like him I think it would really have to be a personal loss for it to get through to him. Tony would be a better man without an eye and a limb.

Old-Salt

programs like this convince me that both the public and politicians should be put in serious harm's way whenever we go to war. Rotate MPs through the most dangerous areas and impose some kind of draft on the public - make it real for them. Otherwise things just go on and on the way they are - poor kit, inadequate pay, incompetent rehabilitation....The public have no idea what a high velocity round sounds like, they've never been awake for 48 hours, they have no frame of reference that would allow them to understand, and they don't care.

there's so much spin, and politicians love to get their photos taken, or may be do a bit of fact finding! (interesting background to the photo, me thinks he didn't go any further than his front door in whitehall)

programs like this can only help the public understand, without them all you would get would be spin spin spin and more photos like the one above.